Four amigos at “De Grensmaas”

Posted on 11 October 2012 by Philip

It’s weekend again and we feel the need to fish, so we started a small fire on social media and Whatsapp. Quickly our smoke signals are being picket up by Paulo of The Flyfishing Nation crew. He is in for some fishing with the Dutchies because his partner in crime, Stephan, is fishing Swedish waters for pike.

The plan was to go to “de Grensmaas”. This is a very nice river in the south part of the Netherlands, one hour drive from where we life. The Grensmaas is a natural border between Belgian and Dutch Limburg. The Grensmaas is over 40 kilometers long and runs from the Belgian bank Lanaken into Kessenich. On the Dutch side the Grensmaas runs between Maastricht and Stevensweert. The Grensmaas between Maastricht and Roasting is getting a completely different face over the coming years, through the implementation of the project Grensmaas; river protection in combination with nature and the mining of gravel. It’s a river that is unique in the Netherlands. There are plans to turn this river back into the salmon river it was years ago. We have caught nice barbel and ASP at this river in the past.

Transportation at 0031 is always a challenge because I drive a “Fishbum Van” with just 2 seats. Ricardo is also driving a 2 seater Van and Vincent’s car was in maintenance. This day my Van was hijacked by my girlfriend so we had to improvise again. That’s what flyfishing is all about, improvising! It was time for fishing with a motorbike, Asian style: “you like motorbike”.

Awesome live bait in the bucket!

Paulo came from Germany by train to Venlo. We where waiting for him at the train station with one car and a motorcycle. Now it was time to see if he will fit the protective gear from my girlfriend, euhh yeah dude you look sexy is that tight outfit.

Loop rocket man

The first stop we made, half way the route was at a gasoline station so Paulo could let his blood flow back in his legs, and we could do some shopping for drinks and something to eat at the river. If you practice catch and release this is a must, and you better not drink the water in the Grensmaas, because the fish piss in it.

After Arriving at the first spot we took a small peak at the river, it looks nice. The water level is not too high, perfect for fishing.

Vincent is making new friends

How big was that fish 🙂

Paulo and Vincent checking the water

Vincent working his double handed rod

Fishy fishy, where are you?!

Team meeting with Paulo Vincent and Ricardo

The walk of shame, no fish caught on this spot

After fishing for one hour the river seems to me empty, no activities of fish. So time to move on to the next spot. On our way back to the car and bike we ran into some other fly fishers. We saw them fishing down stream, they had the same result as us, no activity of fish. Mmm that’s not good so we changed plans and went further down stream. This is a nice spot where we have fished more in the past and caught some nice ASP and pike-perch. Also there is a tube where a factory is dumping cooling water back in the Grensmaas. The water is a bit warmer and in the past we have spotted some very nice and big Koi carp there. We have tried every fly on them in the past but they are very line shy. Sadly they where not there at arrival, I think that the Koi are there only when the water temperature of the Grensmaas is cold.

No Koi carp there

Ricardo giving his streamer some swimming lessons

My weapon, DI3 sink-line with EP streamer

There must be some fish there…

Crew meeting again, where the f#ck are the fish

Likkoe! Philip pleasing the local boss, for our right to walk his land, Like A Boss!!

What’s up with the Grensmaas today, are the fish on holiday or is there a fish conference going on somewhere else. We decided to leave the Grensmaas for what it is and check out a nice Pike spot that is located 40 km away. This is the spot where we caught some nice pike and pike-perch in the past.

Ricardo and I did not bring our pike gear with us so we give Paulo and Vincent the exclusive rights of the spot.

Vincent is knocking on the door where the pike lives, but no pike is home.

Paulo is also nocking on pikies door, but nobody is home.

This is al what fishing is about, I think we need more expensive gear then we catch more fish :-). And now we are hungry so we go to my mother with the Big M in the garden. There we discuss the day and on the way to the Mac I see that it’s a full moon today. Can this be the cause of the bad fishing today? Flyfishing is like football, you can talk for hours about it.

For us this is no problem, sure we like to catch a lot of fish but for us fishing is more than just catching fish. It is a nice way to spend time in nature with friends, and a way to make new friends. If we want to catch more fish and lose our friends we can better use a fishing grenade: